Arseny took a folded piece of paper from his jacket’s inner pocket and handed it to her. A medical report from a year ago, covered in stamps and signatures: incompatibility in the Human Leukocyte Antigens system.
— I was the first to get tested, back when Mom was diagnosed. Do you think I would ask you if I could do it myself? Do you think I wouldn’t give her both my kidneys if it were possible?
She looked at the neat lines, at the incomprehensible abbreviations and numbers, at the Latin terms that meant nothing to her, and she believed. Because she wanted to believe, because she didn’t know how to do otherwise, because her whole life was built on the belief that people are good deep down and incapable of real evil. Arseny would never have asked her for such a thing if there were another way. He loves her, doesn’t he? Can someone pretend for two years?
For three days he didn’t back down, giving her no time to think, to weigh the options, to consult with anyone. He brought her coffee in bed, stroked her head, said the right words in the right voice, hugged her so tightly that she forgot her fear.
— You will become a real part of the family, — he whispered at night in the darkness of the bedroom. — Not just a stamp in a passport, but blood and flesh. Mom will love you like her own daughter, I swear to you. And after the surgery, we’ll fly to the Maldives, just you and me, for a whole month. You’ve earned it. You deserve the very best.
Arina imagined Alla Mikhailovna’s grateful smile, imagined her mother-in-law hugging her for the first time without tension and coldness, saying “thank you, daughter,” and the fear of the scalpel receded, shrank, became insignificant. She had dreamed of a family for so long, so desperately wanted to be needed, to belong to someone, and now here was a chance to prove her worth — not with words that mean nothing, but with a deed, a sacrifice, with blood.
— Okay, — she said on the third day, and her own voice seemed foreign and distant. — I agree.
Arseny held her tight, buried his face in her hair, and she didn’t see how his lips trembled in a triumphant smile.
On the eve of the surgery, Arina was signing documents in the head of department’s office. The stack of papers grew and grew: informed consent, waiver of claims, protocols and acts, each with its own number and stamp. Her head was buzzing from insomnia, the lines blurring before her eyes, merging into a gray mess.
— And here, — Arseny pointed to another clause, his voice sounding casual, business-like. — A standard formality in case of force majeure, they require it in all hospitals.
Arina read it without grasping the meaning: something about the possibility of using the organ for another patient if the primary recipient became medically unfit. What difference did it make, what force majeure? She just wanted one thing: for it all to be over, for tomorrow to come, the day after, a week later, when the stitches would heal and the pain would go away, and her mother-in-law would look at her in a new way, with gratitude and warmth. The pen glided across the paper, leaving a sweeping signature. Done.
In the morning, they wheeled her down the corridor on a gurney, and the lamps overhead merged into a solid white line, pulsating in time with her heartbeat. Arseny walked beside her, holding her hand.
— I’ll be waiting, — he said at the operating room doors, leaning in for a kiss. — As soon as you wake up, I’ll be there. The first thing you’ll see is my face. And then right to the Maldives, you hear? As soon as you’re on your feet.
She wanted to answer, to say something important, something she had been carrying inside for a long time, but the orderly had already pushed the gurney forward. And the last thing Arina remembered before the anesthesia enveloped her in a cottony cloud was his face in the opening of the closing doors. So dear and beloved, so infinitely precious.
She woke up in a different world. The ceiling above her was not white, but gray, with uneven streaks of old whitewash. Instead of the private room with a view of the pines that Arseny had promised, there were four beds in a row. Instead of peace and quiet, there was the hacking cough of the neighbor by the window, the creak of wire-mesh bedsprings, and the muttering of a TV showing some quiz show. The pain in her left side came in waves, thick and heavy, growing with each breath until it was unbearable, filling her entire body. Arina tried to move, but her body wouldn’t obey, her muscles refused to respond. She felt a drainage tube under her hand, leading somewhere under the thick gauze bandage, and the touch of this foreign object in her own body made her nauseous.
Where was Arseny?
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